Once winter shows up, especially in the cold states, your lawn isn’t used much. So, worrying aboutwinter lawn care isn’t something which may be on your mind. But, there are some things you can be doing for your lawn even in the winter. Taking care of your yard in the winter, allows your grass to stay healthy year-round.
Photo by Pixabay/renarde_d
Feed Your Lawn
Feed your grass in the winter. Even though it’s winter, your grass can still reap benefits from fertilizer. Although grass doesn’t grow in the winter months, if you’ve fertilized your grass in the fall, it will feed on this fertilization through the cold. Plus, if you’ve aerated in the fall, then this will give your grass the chance to use the nitrogen, nutrients, and oxygen needed for growth in the spring.
You can alsofertilize your trees and shrubs to help them make it through the winter. They will need a good deal of nitrogen to help to survive the cold months. Soil rich in nitrogen won’t promote growth in your trees and bushes but give them nourishment while being covered under a blanket of snow. When fertilizer is sprinkled around the base of the shrubs and trees, it will seep into the roots below the soil and nourish them during the winter months. Then when spring comes, it will help them with new growth.
Overseed
Another option is overseeding before the snow falls. Since fertilizing won’t help the bald spots in your grass, overseeding will. By overseeding those places before the first snowfall, then the seeds are ready to sprout when spring finally arrives. Water the seeds every other day until either frost or the first snow and you’ll have green grass where the spots were.
You also want to limit the amount of foot traffic on your lawn in the winter months. Be sure to keep your sidewalks and driveway clear of slippery ice and snow. This way, guests and family members won’t walk all over your lawn. Repeated foot traffic in the area can wear a path where there wasn’t one before. This will cause you to have to reseed in the spring to cover it.
Aerate
Another thing which needs to be done for your lawn before the first snow or frost is aeration. The reason for aeration is because your lawn becomes thirsty and hardened in the hot summer. So, when the cold weather shows up, the soil in your lawn can’t breathe. Then snow falls and smothers it further. By aerating you can prevent this.
Aeration is when you pull a plug of soil out of your grass to create pores. These pores allow the root system to breathe and take in any nutrients it needs when you add fertilizer or if you’re seeding. When you create a pore, you’re creating a new root-shoot for food and water.
Take Care of Weeds
You should also weed your yard in the fall before the onset of winter. It’s essential to remove any weeds leftover from the summer. You want to get rid of anything which can kill your lawn. Since weeds are aggressive and will smother your lawn any chance they get, removing them is the best thing to do. If you don’t, then the combination of weeds in the lawn, bitter frost and heavy snow, the odds for a healthy lawn isn’t good. Weeds will ingest any nutrients you put on for the grass, and you’ll have a yard that’s brown and healthy weeds.
Plus, you want to clean up your lawn right before the first snow. Say you left something lying on the grass, like a dog toy, and you plan on picking it up in the spring. If you leave it lying there, then the snow piles on top of the toy and when you move it in the spring, you have dead grass. So, pick up any toys, piles of dead leaves, sticks or anything that will kill your grass.
Even though taking care of your lawn in the winter is less work, it’s still necessary for a lush green spring!